Funding cuts hurt refugees

BY JIM CHIPP - THE WELLINGTONIAN

While Work and Income pleads with language schools to teach refugees English, the Ministry of Social Development has cut funding for the classes.

Work and Income is a department of the ministry, and pays for the classes with its training opportunities fund, delivered via the Tertiary Education Commission.

Work and Income refers the students for training, but the commission has now implemented a tough regime requiring that 60 per cent of each school's students be in work or enrolled in tertiary education within one year.

The Wellingtonian reported the cuts in July, but now they have a human face.

One school has cut 75 per cent of existing students from its lowest class and refused enrolment to students who are unlikely to learn enough English within a year.

Somali and Ethiopian refugees have been the hardest hit in Newtown's Education Training Consultants Learning Centre.

Manager Marty Pilott said funding cuts had forced the school to shed 15 places from a roll of 85, including six of the eight students in its lowest class. Another six prospective students referred by Work and Income were rejected.

He said there was nowhere for rejected students to go, with Wellington's universities not offering beginners' language courses. They would be on benefits indefinitely.

Minister of Social Development Paula Bennett did not respond to emailed Wellingtonian questions.

A spokesman said Work and Income did not fund English for speakers of other languages training programmes, but did refer clients to the Learning Centre.

He said the ministry provided funding through the training opportunities programme via the Tertiary Education Commission and that questions should be directed there.

The Wellingtonian asked whether the minister was aware that her ministry provided most of the funding for these private language schools, why an investment of $12,000 a year for a couple of years was not being made to get people off benefits, whether there were any plans for those turned away from classes, and whether there had been any evaluation of the cost of the classes against a lifetime on the benefit for refugees.